The recent GM's report makes me think that Olympia could be improved in
order to allow different kinds of activity to flourish besides
empire-building. Here are my thoughts on what should be improved:

Opium harvesting should be changed to allow one to harvest two pieces
of opium a day instead of one. This would make opium harvesting easier.
More importantly, it would make the improve opium production skill useful
(as of now it's pretty useless). The use of this skill with this new rule
could bring opium sales up from their current state, zero.

The optional seek command (without a target parameter) should require
a researchable skill through stealth, a counter-intelligence skill if you
will. This still makes it possible to catch sneaks, but it makes sneaking
much easier & less dangerous.

Another researchable skill under stealth should be added: haggling.
This would allow buy & sell orders between nobles & cities (not other
nobles) to be adjusted a little each way in the nobles' favor. Thus a
noble with this skill could buy for a little less & sell for a little
more. The justification for this skill is that it would encourage trading
companies both by giving them their own skill, & by making trading more
profitable (it just isn't very profitable right now--the GM's report is
misleading since it doesn't take into account the original purchase
price).

On a different issue I'm wondering: is there any qualitative
difference between siege towers & catapults & battering rams? A siege
tower uses a lot more resources to make & perhaps should have a
corrosponding bonus?